


kings among runaways

by jeannedarc



Category: EXO (Band), SHINee
Genre: Drug Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Implied Past Abuse, M/M, Prostitution, Suicidal Thoughts, Teen Runaways, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 22:37:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13200018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeannedarc/pseuds/jeannedarc
Summary: They have the same coat. Jongin tries his best not to notice this coincidence, but it tugs at him in a way that he can't find the voice to explain, not after seventeen years of silence.





	kings among runaways

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhhhhh wow  
> please take the tags seriously and only do as much as you can take
> 
> happy birthday [kayla](http://twitter.com/taestykai) ♥

It's raining when they first meet, a downpour so heavy it feels like a just-washed blanket when it lands on your head. He's smoking at the bus stop, the smoke dissipating into the air as vapour, the water seeming to absorb it so quickly that Jongin isn't sure he's not just pretending to puff on something unlit.

They have the same coat, Jongin's run-down from years of use, but the same one regardless. Jongin tries his best not to notice this coincidence, but it tugs at him in a way that he can't find the voice to explain, not after seventeen years of silence.

Taemin -- well, he doesn't know he's Taemin at that point, though when he looks back he'll wonder how he ever didn't know, how they were ever two separate entities instead of what they've become -- studies Jongin with lazy, heavy-hooded eyes, takes a drag of his cigarette. "Who are you?" he asks, all blunt and hard edges with soft insides, his voice careful, his gaze something akin to pity.

"I'm just waiting for the bus," says Jongin quietly, looking away, watching the rain puddle beside the curb. He is so self-conscious under this stare he's receiving that he doesn't know what to do with his hands, his mouth, his heart.

He looks Jongin up and down, now, not scrutinising but observant. "There hasn't been a bus running here for seven years," he tells Jongin matter-of-factly, a mouthful of smoke leaving the hollow between his lips; Jongin pretends he doesn't stare at that. "The only people who hang out here are hookers and dope fiends. Which are you?"

"Neither," Jongin almost yells, all the tension from forcing himself to be quiet all this time building up quickly. "I just thought there was a bus. I'm trying to leave."

"What are you leaving?" Taemin's grinning now, quietly, like he knows a secret that Jongin could never think to guess.

"Home," states Jongin, stuffing his hands into the pocket of his blue raincoat and balling them into fists.

"And where are you going?"

He hasn't considered this; the realisation punches him in the face. He just wants to go somewhere, it doesn't have to be anywhere in particular. He can feel the scarlet in his own face.

His eyes meet Jongin's. "You can come with me, then."

"Why would I go with you? You just humiliated me." Jongin pauses to swallow the lump in his throat. "'Only hookers and dope fiends hang out here,' right? So which are you?"

He smiles in that weird way that Jongin will soon come to look upon fondly. "Why not both?" He drops his cigarette into the puddle at their feet, takes Jongin's hand, leads him away from the shelter of the overhang at this bus stop. He doesn't seem to look ahead though, rather up into the infinite grey of the clouds. He lights himself another cigarette, never once letting go of Jongin's hand, and Jongin has to admit he's almost impressed by it.

"What's your name?" he asks, and Jongin mumbles in turn, not sure of the lie, but he'll get used to it anyhow. "Nice to meet you, Kai, I'm Taemin. You're coming to my hotel with me."

"Your hotel...?" For a half-second Jongin is gripped with fleeting images of a prince, run away from his oppressive and wealthy parents, the heir to a hotel fortune, but that's absolutely silly. There's nothing like that around here, anyway, just dust and dirt and depression. "Where is it?"

Taemin smiles in that way again, like there's something holding him back from experiencing the joy he wants to feel fully, and squeezes Jongin's hand. "It's by the mall. I work there."

"You work at the mall...?"

"Yep. All my best customers are there looking for me right now. But first I'm gonna take you to my place and get you a shower and some rest."

Jongin, for a long moment, regards Taemin with wonder, tilting his head, physically and mentally unable to fathom any of this kindness. Taemin doesn't even know him and yet here he is, taking care of him like a friend might. Jongin wouldn't know, all his friends left before things got really bad at home.

He laces his fingers through Taemin's, and Taemin takes his hand back. "Whoa there, tiger, that's too much like affection you've got going on." Jongin flushes, embarrassed of always taking things just a step too far, not knowing where the limit lies. But when he looks up from his shameful gazing at the sidewalk Taemin is looking at him like the sun shines directly out of him, that hesitating smile still plastered in place.

Jongin wants to feel comforted. He doesn't.

They end up at quite possibly the most rickety building Jongin has ever seen, roaches making their escape as Jongin and Taemin enter through the front door. The desk is attended by a bored-looking attendant, hardly any older than either Jongin or Taemin themselves, bleach-blond hair and oversized headphones and round, wire-rimmed glasses that make him seem a lot more worldly than he probably actually is.

"Hey, Wonsik," says Taemin by way of greeting, still smoking inside the building. Aforementioned desk worker, Wonsik it seems, looks up, sees the thin trail of smoke following Taemin and, by association, Jongin through the lobby, and lights up, clearly alarmed.

"You know you can't smoke in here!" yells Wonsik, eyebrows shooting up so far they literally disappear behind his hairline. "You're gonna get me fuckin' fired, you asshole!"

"No I'm not," Taemin deadpans, stopping for about a half-beat before continuing walking, shaking his head. "I'm just taking it to my room. You know no one cares that much about what I'm doing. Can you chill?"

Jongin doesn't miss the brilliant smile Taemin flashes Wonsik's direction, completely different from the one he'd been giving Jongin -- this one's all crinkly eyes and a high keen that doesn't befit him at all. Jongin isn't sure he likes either, but he does like the easy way Taemin seems to handle authority figures.

They walk down a long hallway lined with doors, most of their numbers tilted or falling off, paint peeling, light flickering. They stop at an unmarked one and Taemin kicks in the door, a cracking of wood resounding through the hallway. Taemin motions for Jongin to follow, and Jongin does despite his anxiety over probably staying in a hotel illegally.

"Stay here," instructs Taemin, gesturing around the room as if that's tour enough. "Don't open the door for anyone unless it's Wonsik, now that you've met him. It probably won't be. Take a shower. Take a nap. There's food...fuck, somewhere? In the cabinet, I think." He points to a quarter-kitchenette. "Or if you don't feel safe eating food here, and I wouldn't blame you for that, I can leave you money."

Jongin's stomach grumbles. He ignores it. "I'm not hungry."

"Okay." Taemin nods. "Do whatever you need to do. I'll be back in a few hours. Probably with drugs. If that bothers you, you don't have to stay."

Just now, really looking at him in the dim lighting of the room, Jongin can see faint shadows beneath Taemin's eyes, how tired, how old he looks. He can't possibly be older than Jongin, yet he looks like he's been doing this for years and can't take a lot more. Jongin has never done drugs of any kind, doesn't even know a whole lot about them, but knows the kind of people they turn others into. He wonders, just for a moment, what Taemin was like Before.

He nods back. "It doesn't bother me."

"Then I'll see you soon." Taemin's already leaving, raising his arm over his head in an awkward wave, another cigarette between his fingers. He carefully sets the door closed, maybe an apology for kicking it in before.

Jongin watches him go, and it would be a lie if he said he didn't watch the lines of Taemin's hips as they swung right out the door.

He doesn't want to shower, knows that he's littered in bruises even though it's been days since he's let anyone put their hands on him. He lifts his shirt despite the bulk of his raincoat, checks on them, their mottled blues and purples and reds; he even pokes a couple, wincing and hissing at the pain. At least, he thinks, at least he knows he's alive.

His ribcage expanding inexplicably, Jongin lays on the single enormous bed, not bothering to shrug off his raincoat. He curls in on himself. He sleeps for an indeterminable amount of time. He dreams of home, and when he wakes up his face is covered in tears he doesn't recall crying.

\---

"So how much do you know?" Taemin is in the area one might designate as a living room, hunched over the coffee table with his heels digging into the threadbare carpet, cutting up pills with a credit card, turning them to dust before Jongin's very eyes.

"About what?" Jongin is fiddling with his hands, touching his hair, anything to distract his body from the anxiety he experiences while watching all this go down.

Taemin divides the pile of crumbs and dust into lines, chops at them a little more, making the dust finer. "About what it is I do."

"Which part?" Jongin laughs in spite of himself, unsure as to how to take his own question, as to whether or not he's made this whole thing awkward, as he is so wont to do. "The drugs or the hookers?"

"Hooking," Taemin corrects. "It's called prostitution. But I mean this." Carefully, he gestures to the pile of off-white sitting in front of them.

"Oh." Jongin shrugs, looks away, hopes his sheepish blush doesn't show in the relative darkness. "Enough."

"Enough to want to try some?" Taemin cocks his head, lifts a brow. "It's cool if you don't, I just need to know if you do, 'cause if so, I'll break up some more."

Jongin tries not to eye the other bags and bottles on the table, the dark, brassy brown of them reflecting his face back at him, but he's so acutely aware of them that it's causing him actual physical pain. He wants, but doesn't want, and it's caught in this impasse that he finds himself sweating it out. "I'll try if you'll try first."

Taemin laughs, a hearty sound, his whole face crinkling up as he throws his head back. His hand finds Jongin's knee and gives it an almost affectionate squeeze. Jongin half expects it to wander further, goosebumps rising on his skin at the muscle memory, but the touch is gone just as quick as it had come.

Without even so much as a warning, Taemin picks up the half-straw he'd cut a few minutes ago. He snorts a whole line of whatever the fuck he's doing, and Jongin has to force himself to look away from the slight trail of snot dripping slowly down Taemin's upper lip, on the opposite side. So much of his life, some distant part of him believes, is him making himself look away from whatever it is that's happening in front of him.

After a couple more rails Taemin reaches over, blind, eyes visibly spinning and rolling back in his head, and grabs a clean straw, offering it to Jongin. Jongin eyes the shapes of Taemin's knuckles.

He just wants, so badly, not to be alone.

The moment the powder starts draining down the back of his throat, Jongin regrets it, his own embarrassment and desperation just as wholly bitter as the drainage that floods the back of his tongue. They sit in quiet a long while, minutes upon minutes upon lifetimes, before Taemin gets up, stretches his arms over his head. Jongin does not look away from the thin, pale strip of hipbones, too skinny for someone so lovely, jutting out over the waistband of Taemin's jeans.

"You wanna go to work with me?" asks Taemin, too casual by far, and Jongin's punched in the face with a nervous energy the likes of which he's never felt. He doesn't really understand what 'work' entails (he's not stupid, knows what prostitutes do, just finds he's unfamiliar with the process), but he knows that he has to get up and move immediately or his skeleton is going to jump right out of his skin and dance away.

He lifts his face, looks into Taemin's eyes, and nods. The numbness around his edges has faded, fuzzed, become something understandable rather than desperately sad.

Taemin takes Jongin by the hand, pulls him to his feet. "Let's go down to the bridge," he suggests softly. Again, Jongin nods his assent, and follows along.

\---

Down at the bridge is a dreary place, a dredge of needles and used condoms and fast-food trash, all names and natures of detritus, littering the lines of the riverbank. Jongin peers over the edge of the bridge's railing, his hands wrapped tight around its frigid metal frame, and leans into the wind that beckons him to jump, however briefly.

It's Taemin that keeps him from giving in, grabbing him by the collar of his raincoat and pulling him along. In this moment, Jongin is forced to admire the swagger, the confidence with which Taemin carries himself. He's not entirely certain as to how much of it is due to the drugs and how much is just the Taemin he met, but he doesn't want to find out where the line is drawn, doesn't want to test the tentative limits of this acquaintanceship, if it can be termed as much.

The bridge eventually gives way to a little down-sloping path, and Taemin stumbles down it a little bit, Jongin nearly following suit completely by accident. When they're both upright again, Taemin is laughing quietly under his breath, pulls Jongin in by the arm, ignoring any meager attempt to shake off the touches Jongin makes.

"You okay?" He holds Jongin by the shoulders, regards him seriously.

"Yeah," breathes Jongin, and his breath fogs up around his face a little. He swears he's steaming because of the blush staining his cheeks.

Still dragging him, Taemin skips along down the path, all the way to where it meets the water, which has risen considerably, a side effect of the rain over the last few days. This drainage covers the bottom of the path, and Jongin regards it with trepidation, keenly aware that he's currently wearing the only pair of shoes he's going to get for the foreseeable future. Taemin, though, he just kicks his way through the water without a care in the world.

If it weren't so dangerous, so careless, so blatantly the opposite of everything he's trying to make himself these days, Jongin might almost find it endearing.

Down to the right, around a corner and up a steep grade is a tiny fire, made of chip bags and whatever kindling must have been found in the days before the storm. It's manned by a rather comfortable looking man, older, a backpack sitting at his feet, he himself parked in a foldout chair of nearly shredded canvas and weak-looking netting. The man is watching them with wide, wary eyes.

"I told you not to come back here," says the man, his grizzled beard seeming to crawl before Jongin's very eyes.

"And I told you," says Taemin, friendly as ever, closing the gap between himself and this man to put a decidedly tender hand on his shoulder, "that I would be back with what you wanted." His fingers slither down the length of the man's arm, catch his hand, and Jongin doesn't know better than to think that he's slipping something into the calloused fingers he's holding. Continuing, Taemin flashes that winning smile. "Are you gonna do me a favour and call your friend?"

The man looks from Taemin's earnest face to Jongin's, eyes him warily. "Who's this kid?"

"Does it matter? He's my friend." Jongin would be unable to deny the warmth this shoots through him, cutting through the cold consuming him from the bones out. "He wanted to come to work with me. He's, uh, he's new."

The man -- he's older, wrinkled, shaking slightly, though Jongin can't determine whether or not it's from cold or from something else -- looks Jongin up and down a long while, drags his tongue across his dried-out bottom lip, and nods. "I'll make the call."

They sit mostly in silence as they wait, the man trying to prod Jongin with questions in a voice so suspicious you'd think Jongin were wearing a wire, and Taemin protecting him by answering for him. None of it is true, of course; they haven't had a real conversation since they met at the bus stop yesterday morning, but Jongin appreciates the effort just the same.

Thirty minutes later, when the drugs inside him are starting to wind down, headlights illuminate the space down at the bottom of the path, soft and golden and eerie. A second man comes to the grade a few minutes after that, this one decidedly clean cut but older than their initial guest, thick threads of grey running through his hair, his neatly-trimmed moustache. He greets the old man -- Taemin calls him Hachi -- with a wave and a grin and shakes his hand, taking whatever Taemin had given him and popping the bottle open to down a couple pills. One of his rolled-up sleeves comes loose, and he does nothing to fix it.

He and Hachi exchange pleasantries and then he seems to notice, for the first time even though he was aware of the nature of the invitation, that he and Hachi are not alone. He spares Taemin a glance, starts to say something, but then fixes his slowly-dilating gaze on Jongin.

"You wanna go to my car?" asks this man, and he's turned toward Taemin, probably speaking to him too, but he's looking at Jongin, his expression in his well-worn face nervous. "Who's your friend?"

"His name's Kai, and he's probably not gonna want to do business with you," says Taemin pointedly. "I, however, have been waiting for you all night."

The guy's laugh lines show when he smiles. "S'that so. Both of you can come, and your friend can watch."

"You're gonna pay double for that." Taemin, for all his carefree bullshit, is something of a harsh negotiator, staring the man down with something akin to hatred in his eyes. "If you want my friend you have to pay for him."

Jongin doesn't know how he feels about anything, right now, least of all being a bartering chip. But he can feel the fierce protectiveness in the way Taemin shuffles closer to him, a shoulder eclipsing his own. He turns to catch Jongin's eye a moment, expecting a response.

Jongin puffs out his chest a little, keeps his voice low. "What he said."

The man flounders a bit, opening and closing his mouth in an attempt to wiggle his way out of this deal, but Taemin remains steadfast, and Jongin tries his to turn his gaze steely in spite of the tiredness consuming him. He gives in quickly, waving over his shoulder.

All three of them make their way back up the path, waving Hachi a stout goodbye over their shoulders, no one choosing to look back as he tends to his tiny fire. Up the hill is a decidedly expensive car, the kind with a roomy backseat if Jongin remembers right, his experience in the backseat of cars a bit limited. It hadn't occurred to Jongin to be nervous before, but he's not sure he's okay with a stranger touching him right about now. After all, he's only just adjusted to how touchy Taemin himself is, is doing his best not to wince away when Taemin takes his hand and leads him this way or that, zigzagging their way to the car.

"What's your name?" Jongin asks their customer as he swings open the door to the passenger's seat, and Taemin shoots him a look like it's a mistake.

The guy just laughs, head thrown back, all his teeth gleaming wickedly by the light of the moon. "You want something to call me? Call me daddy, then."

It was, in fact, a mistake. Jongin's face heats. He sits in the seat, faces forward for as long as he can, listens silently to the shuffle of clothing as it hits the floor of the car's backseat. There's a wet smacking sound and Jongin thinks it might sound vaguely familiar and when he turns he sees Taemin, back arched, pants pushed down around his pale thighs, some guy's mouth attached to his neck.

Taemin, in this moment, is the most beautiful thing Jongin can never have, and the conclusion to which that brings him leaves him more bereft than he had been upon leaving home.

He tips back his head, catches Jongin's eye, and winks. Then he's rocking his hips upward, into a fist too big for his cock, stroking him clumsily as the man beneath Taemin swears under his breath, litters the air with filthy praise.

Jongin pretends, harder than he's ever pretended anything, that he doesn't want to be that person, doesn't imagine the weight of Taemin's dick in his own palm instead of someone else's. If he gets hard, he wills it away perfectly, a model of self-control. He watches with wide eyes, heated cheeks, and though the moment gets intimate, Taemin begging in a voice that sounds nothing like his own, Jongin can not, does not look away.

When everything is over, and money is exchanging hands, and no one bids anyone else goodnight, Jongin is stricken with the urge to bathe in the ice-cold river. He isn't suicidal, he swears it, he just needs to get the scent of someone else's come out of his nose, and that's the only way he can think of to do that.

Taemin lights a cigarette; the smoke dissipates in the open air, and Jongin breathes it in, welcome.

"What'd you think?" asks Taemin in an exhale.

What did Jongin think? He tries to conceive a lie in the half-second he's got. "I think I might want to try next time."

By the light of his own cigarette, Taemin's grin is illuminated. "That can be arranged."

\---

They have a tendency to hang out at the food court on days like these -- rainy, despite brightness, no good for looking for customers outside, even though Jongin insists they can just use an umbrella, he hates being stuck inside -- the scent of deep-fry and the warmth steam coming off the Japanese flat-top punching them both in the face. The crowds are kind of thin; it doesn't look like it's going to be a very good day for business, but the one thing he's learned in the past week or so is to not give up hope.

"What are we gonna do today?" he asks Taemin, like they don't operate under the assumption that they're gonna get fucked, get paid, go score. Taemin, it seems, has other plans; he's perched on the back of the chair, his feet on the torn plastic seat, bouncing restlessly.

"We're gonna get you something new to wear," says Taemin, his tone serious, he looking Jongin up and down a long time, eyeing his blue raincoat. "If I see you wearing that fuckin' thing one more time I'm gonna lose it."

Jongin also looks down at his coat, the stray threads coming loose, and realises that he hasn't taken it off since they met, not even to sleep. It's become something of a comfort to wake up in the same thing day after day. One less decision for him to make. "Can we afford it?" They'd paid up a week in rent at the hotel the night before, Taemin counting and recounting and recounting stacks of bills to make sure they're taken care of, the anxiety never once leaving his frame, hunching him over with the weight of the world. Jongin still feels guilty about it, unable to rectify the fact that he is a drain, that he's only had a couple customers who were okay with keeping their hands to themselves and that this sort of business doesn't make much money unless one is willing to defy their own comfort zones.

He wonders if they have enough. He tugs at a thread at the hem of his coat. His face burns and his eyes prick with tears.

Taemin, though, he just grins, ruffles Jongin's hair affectionately. "Who said anything about being able to afford shit?"

They stalk the mall up and down a couple times, run into a client of theirs, a middle-aged married woman with many expensive rings on her fingers, her hair freshly who offers to take them shopping as soon as she realises that Jongin is wearing the same thing he had been last time. Taemin pretends to be shy, almost too much so to agree to her kindness, kicking at a spot on the ground as if he's trying to eliminate it from existence. It takes everything inside Jongin to keep from laughing. The woman offers them a brilliant smile.

"Whatever you want," she says, reaching out as if they're old friends and pinching Jongin's cheek with a decided amount of matronly affection. For a split second, Jongin is reminded of his own mother, passed out on the couch at home, the ashtray lit up with the cigarette she'd lit before the alcohol had taken her; of putting out the fire before it becomes more than embers; of rain on his skin through the tiny burn holes in his raincoat, holes not of his own making but of circumstance.

Suddenly he can't think of anything he wants more than to wear something else, to burn these clothes like the trash that they are. "Can I please have some new clothes," he asks in his trademark mumble.

Taemin lights up, elated; he takes Jongin by the elbow, and follows the scent of money into the closest department store.

An hour and a half later, when they've shaken their benevolent benefactor, Taemin is checking in the bags for the most expensive pieces, the ones he'd asked Jongin to push for. "Maybe we can take these back," he hums, pulling at this garment or that one, checking the price tags that still dangle from their sleeves. "We could use the money."

"What would we use the money for?" Jongin regards Taemin with eyebrows raised, shrugging at the feeling of brand-new, never-worn material on his shoulders, trying to get the hair on the back of his neck to lay down somehow. He's always hated new things; this, being with Taemin, their hotel room filled with roaches and depravity, is the only one he's ever been able to stomach.

Jongin's stomach flips when Taemin stops fiddling with the new clothes, throws arms around him and pulls him into a kiss, just a quick one. "Whatever you want, you beautiful little scam artist, you."

He knows it's impractical, but Jongin wants to give Taemin whatever he wants. Just right now.

\---

Tonight's a bar bathroom, mall adjacent, a couple blocks out of the way from home, but who's counting travel time and effort when the potential for money on a Saturday night is so good? That's how Taemin explains it to him, anyhow, and as the days melt into weeks and become a month, Jongin is starting to doubt him less and less. He's usually right, even though his version of right ends up with them getting loaded and going out and making enough money to buy them more pills.

It seems like a vicious cycle, but Jongin chooses to be a part of it. He feels more alive than ever, with Taemin beside him and work on his mind, even on the nights he chooses not to get high. Now, when the rain bites into his skin, a sharp, freezing drizzle that only touches his hands and face and the back of his neck, he can feel all the dirt washing from his spirit and he can breathe.

When they enter there are too many people, and Jongin starts to panic. He doesn't deal well with all this noise, with the crowd, with everyone trying to get their own spot on the dance floor or at the bar. He starts to feel the walls close in on him, and Taemin must be paying close enough attention to notice, because he leans in close enough that his mouth brushes Jongin's ear, sending a shiver rocketing down his spine. "Go to the bathroom and I'll handle it," he instructs firmly, and Jongin is all too happy to follow this one.

He goes to the bathroom, followed by a large cloud of smoke, and gasps for fresh air, slumping against the sticker-and-graffiti-covered, spring-loaded door as it swings closed behind him. When he can breathe again, he looks around at the dingy blue tile surrounding him, realising that for the first time in at least thirty days, he is alone. The vanity mirror is cracked, and Jongin sees that in his reflection, wonders if he's going to crack a little himself. He doesn't feel right, though he can't say in particular why that is. Taemin sidles up beside him, an arm around his waist, a temple to his shoulder.

"He should be here in a few minutes," he announces softly, dusting his lips to the apple of Jongin's cheek briefly before resuming what essentially is a snuggle. Jongin turns his head, inspects the line of Taemin's eyeliner, the shape of his lips, the perfect messiness of his hair and the yellow in his fingertips from all the smoking he does. It's odd, Jongin thinks, seeing him without a cigarette right now.

It's odd that Jongin had noticed, and noticed, and noticed how beautiful Taemin is, has always been, but never done anything about it.

So he ducks down and presses his lips to Taemin's in a firm kiss, quietly reveling in the way Taemin's fingers curl into fists when they grab hold of the front of Jongin's shirt to pull him closer. They stay like this, glued together, until Jongin laps at the seam of Taemin's lips, and Taemin pushes away, leaning back against the sink, careful of the wet spots on its surface.

Of course. He's always taken things just a step too far.

"How long?" Taemin asks, lazy, breathless, strangely satisfied.

"How long...?"

"How long have you wanted to do that?" Taemin isn't looking at him but rather at the puddle on the sink into which he's tracing little shapes just to watch them disappear again. Jongin can't tell under the layers of makeup but he might be flushed, just a little, though from exertion or frustration he couldn't possibly choose.

"...Awhile," answers Jongin, hesitation clear in his voice, in the way he starts to reach out to Taemin but ends up dropping his hands to his sides instead. "Is it okay?"

Taemin tries to speak several times. He settles on dotting a kiss to the corner of Jongin's mouth. "We'll fuck when we're home. It's work time now."

"We'll what?"

Taemin turns his head when the bathroom door opens, and the customer enters, his wallet out, nervousness in his eyes. With a start, Jongin realises that Taemin's been holding his hand for the past full five seconds, and squeezes it, fingers threading right out from between Jongin's. "You heard me. Get to work."

\---

They make more money than Jongin can even conceive, go home with their pockets and their waistbands and their belt loops full of cash. Taemin whoops all the way back to the hotel, and even in the lobby, earning him a look of pure hatred from Wonsik, who can apparently hear him through his headphones.

As soon as they're back in the door of their hotel room, Taemin is dropping the money in all the appropriate places, mumbling to himself something about taking them out to eat. Jongin wants to ask if he means right now, but when he turns to speak, Taemin is right there, arms around his waist, forehead pillowed on his shoulder comfortably, lips pressed to the spot where his heart beats beneath his sternum. Jongin prays Taemin can't hear it speed up.

His thumbs press into Jongin's hipbones, and God, has Jongin ever been this fucked, even in his current line of work? He rolls his eyes so hard he swears he sees a portion of his brain stem, and pulls Taemin into a kiss, all breathless victory and the reckless abandon their youth should afford them but their lives don't.

For a split second, Jongin finds himself wondering about Before, about the Taemin he'll never get the chance to know, about whether or not his lips would taste the same as they did earlier, in that shitty bar bathroom. But then that grip on his hips tightens and all rational thought flies right out the window.

Taemin's lips are at the side of his neck and it's fucking mortifying how quickly Jongin's dick rises into action, pressing against the front of his too-tight jeans with insistence, a need for attention. He presses himself into Taemin's front, tilts his head, gives more neck to work with, and is rewarded with a sharp bite to the throat that has him keening.

They fumble out of their clothes, and Taemin covers him in bruises with his mouth, leaving Jongin a shivering, whining, needy mess, something he's not been in God only knows how long. He's the first to stumble to the couch in their living room, Taemin following close behind, both hands on Jongin's hips as he waddles along. When they collapse into the threadbare cushions, Taemin on top but Jongin holding him tight, they're already sweaty, breathing hard, rocking into one another with a force that sets Jongin's head reeling.

They don't do much other than grind against each other, both too tired and disgusting from work tonight to do much else, but when Jongin cums and Taemin follows suit a couple moments later it's almost as if this was meant to be.

With a heavy but sated sigh, Taemin collapses atop Jongin, arms fitted around his middle. "How long?" he asks in a voice verging on sleepy, and Jongin can't find it in himself to be disappointed, his own limbs heavy with exhaustion.

"Since I saw you wearing the same coat as me," he replies as easily as breathing.

Taemin huffs out a laugh, cheek pressed to Jongin's chest, warm and comforting. "I stole that coat from a guy I worked with, a little while before I met you," he confesses, and there it is, that piece of Before that Jongin has so desperately craved.

"Can we talk about that sometime?" Jongin murmurs, eyes slipping closed against his will.

"About what?"

"About what it was like before I met you."

Jongin can hear the smile in Taemin's voice. "Go to sleep, asshole," he says, and it's so close to affection that Jongin might scream with delight. When he falls asleep, it's with the happiest heart he can ever remember having.


End file.
